7 Shocking Medical Theories

Medical science advances when scientists, physicians, and other smart people develop ideas about disease. These theories then become the subject of research and, sometimes, they change the way we understand disease.

Diabetes is in Your Gut

Patients who undergo gastric bypass—the invasive surgery that makes the stomach smaller and “bypasses” large sections of the intestine—often emerge from surgery to find their diabetes is gone. This observation has led investigators to wonder if part of diabetes involves the intestines—up to now, the focus has always been on the pancreas. To be sure, not every gastric surgery patient finds his or her diabetes cured—but most do. In some cases, diabetes returns, but there are many cases of permanent cure.

Here is what we know:

· In a clinical trial, about 2/3 of gastric bypass patients found that their diabetes was gone after surgery.

· In some of those patients, diabetes never returns, but others have diabetic symptoms again after around eight years.